Dans la mémoire
by Safara
Summary: A lifetime of Section One Memories


Dans la mémoire  
  
The shadows gradually lengthened and then grew dimmer in the deepening twilight until she could no longer see the different structures. She looked out of the window and all she could see was shades of gray; 'so much like her life', she mused. She thought back over the past forty years, so much she had experienced, so many life had passed through her hands - the Nikita and Michael's of Section - the bright stars and the dark tortured souls, that had fleetingly touched down before flying onwards on life's journey.  
  
She thought of the suffering she had seen and all in the name of peace, many thousands of lives had been saved by the actions of section, but balanced against that was the deaths of so many of her people. Some had died violently, some quietly but all were brave to the end. Some died because they had failed to make the grade, others because they were the best and section had sacrificed them in the name of peace. She remembered them all; thought of them every day, they were her family, the tormented souls haunting her sleepless nights with their eternal cries of sorrow. Just as other people had family she had her ghosts, not friendly ones but tormented souls who died, not doing what they believed in, but because Section threatened them. It had always been the case, right from the beginning, people didn't join Section voluntarily but because they had no choice, except to choose death. Not many recruits were brave, or foolhardy enough to refuse Section, those that did.. well they simply vanished but everyone knew what had happened to those operatives that just disappeared.  
  
She remembered how it had felt, to wake up that first morning, being coldly greeted by a person who declared themselves your mentor, and that you were now Section material. It was a terrible loss, freedom, family even identity - every movement dictated by Section, her life was controlled to the finest detail; there was no escape, the only future was to kill or be killed.  
  
Gradually an existence grew, an acceptance of the rules, her training levels were increased, but always the price of failure was waiting to be paid. Operations and Madeline were always waiting, like vultures at a feast, they waited, watched, appraised each recruit any weakness was seen as a failure and the recruits who failed were never seen again after a visit to the white room with Madeline. She had heard how cancellations were carried out, but only two people really knew and only Madeline ever returned from the white room. The other recruits didn't speculate too heavily, it was too close to all of them at some point during their training.  
  
Finally, when the training was done, the final decisions made, the recruits who had passed were put on active status, the others.. well they weren't discussed anymore.  
  
She remembered, with clarity, her first mission. It was terrifying, she succeeded in her task, her training enabled her to get through it; that was when the nightmares started. Following missions were equally bad, to kill or be killed, fail and you would die anyway. You had to succeed at any cost, failure was not an option in section's rulebook. It was hard to watch as fellow operatives, ones she had trained with, die in a hail of bullets, unable to help them to make sure that mission objectives were not compromised. The tears came later, when she was alone. She told no-one of her fears and nightmares, but she felt that Madeline suspected, nothing was said and her performance ratings were seemingly unaffected so she was left alone.  
  
Gradually she learnt not to show how she felt, and she isolated herself from emotional attachments to other operatives. She was seen as cold and emotionless by the newer, younger operatives, but it was just a survival instinct on her part, she couldn't allow herself to become emotionally attached; it hurt enough when fellow ops didn't come back from missions. She could no longer take the pain or losing someone else that she was close to. The pain had been nothing she had ever imagined, so intense that it hurt to breathe. Her eyes had reflected the pain in her soul and shone bleakly out from her numbed body.  
  
Madeline had called her in to her office and spoke calmly and softly, eventually the words sunk in to her mind "Nothing will bring him back, life does go on, it will dull the pain but not the memory, you will get over it". She left Madeline's office and returned to her quarters at section, although she was now a level 2 op, she had opted to remain within section, even though she could have had an apartment outside. It was another attachment that she wouldn't have to make or explain.  
  
The room was painted silvery grey with flashes of black and white, you could not describe it as a relaxing room, but then she never relaxed, she exercised, trained, ate and slept. There was no room in her schedule for relaxing; it didn't achieve anything, only gave room for her thoughts, which brought painful memories of lost colleagues. So she kept her body busy and didn't allow space for her mind to be less than 100% occupied, other than when she slept - which was about 4 hours on a good night. Mostly she got about 2 hours before she gave in and went for a run on the treadmill in the gym. Someone in section was always awake and training, so she didn't stand out.  
  
As she grew more experienced in section, and as the level of her skills grew, she was expected to produce better results and she didn't disappoint. Eventually she found herself at the highest level that an operative could attain. Each stage had brought further deaths, injuries to section operatives, along the way she felt that her soul had been finally torn from her body, leaving a shell behind which responded to commands but showed no emotions. She saw fewer operatives that she knew, as they had grown older, like Walter, they had been appraised and those found wanting were not heard from again.  
  
Michael was killed a few years ago on a badly planned mission, it wasn't his fault; the intel had been faulty and the profiler relatively inexperienced. It was one of the few times that she felt Section mourn a lost comrade. Nikita was desolate at first and then became more Michael- like, remote and aloof, gradually she grew in strength but still preferred to do things 'her way' to try and protect the innocents. She was killed some two years after Michael - lured into a trap by a terrorist group Black Dusk and shot like a rat in a trap.  
  
Operations took her death badly, he blamed himself for her death, it had been him who had instructed her to follow up on the intel that had led to her eventual death. It was more than just blaming himself for her death, Nikita and Michael had been chosen as natural successors to his and Madeline's position but now that hope had died with Nikita, Operations appeared to withdraw into himself afterwards. Six months later, he was called to a meeting with Oversight and George, he never returned. Madeline vanished a few hours later.  
  
There was a Section rumour, that certain key section personnel were not 'cancelled' but lived out the remainder of their lives at a remote section location. She didn't know if this were true, and no records existed to prove or disprove the theory - she had looked through section files and then finally given up.  
  
No-one was more surprised than her when George appointed her Operations at Section 1, she had neither desired nor wanted it, however promotions could only be rejected if the person chose cancellation instead. She had tried to be a good leader, in the sense that good operatives were hard to find and she tried hard not to waste their lives. Sometimes it had been necessary to send them on suicide missions. It was so hard, to watch from her office, at the returning teams and realise that once again, more had gone out than had come back.  
  
Younger operatives, some new to section, saw her as being grey, almost a figure of fun, though none would have dared say it. She wore grey all the time, her hair had gradually gone grey to match her eyes. They took her commands seriously, there was not a choice, to be found disobeying her rules would mean cancellation, no matter how much remorse on her part.  
  
She had a good team of senior operatives, it had been a deliberate move on her part, any one of them could take her place as Operations. She knew that her turn at leadership was almost over, no regrets, only for those that had remained eternally young. She had done her best, it only remained to see Oversight and after that..... well she would face that challenge when it arose. 


End file.
